


The Cracks and the Memories

by Mack_the_Spoon



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post 2.22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mack_the_Spoon/pseuds/Mack_the_Spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe this had been inevitable, from the moment the FBI's fourth Most Wanted had surrendered himself and demanded to speak only to her. Maybe it had been inevitable from the moment Liz had first met him – that actual first moment, when she was four years old.</p><p>(This story takes place immediately following the season two finale.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cracks and the Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this is clear from the tags and summary, but this contains spoilers for the season two finale!
> 
>  
> 
> I am not a Lizzington shipper, though I certainly see the fascination of exploring the relationship between the two. Though I wrote it as gen, this story could *probably* be read as shippy if you wanted to.
> 
> Thanks to Namarie for the edits. BTW, this story is *not* a part of our 'Bloodlines' AU.

Distantly, Liz was aware that she was in shock. Of course she was. There hadn't been time for her to absorb everything that had happened in... well, she honestly couldn't remember the last time she'd slowed down and tried to deal with it. With anything. Even Tom, on the boat – she'd been fooling herself, pretending that things could end up any other way than how they were now:

With her falling asleep on Raymond Reddington's shoulder, as the two of them headed away from it all. Maybe this had been inevitable, from the moment the FBI's fourth Most Wanted had surrendered himself and demanded to speak only to her. Maybe it had been inevitable from the moment Liz had first met him – that actual first moment, when she was four years old.

But that was a train of thought she couldn't keep going down. Not now. Not when she was so tired that her bones ached. She had to sleep now, while she could. While she could pretend that feeling safe with Red was good enough.

~~~~~~

He woke her gently some time later. It probably hadn't been long, since she didn't feel remotely rested, but that made sense, since they were at an airfield. “It's time to go, Lizzie.”

She nodded, and allowed him to escort her up the stairs into the jet. It was only when the door was closed and they were both seated that a thought struck her. She gasped. “The box.”

“What box, Lizzie?” said Red. He was sitting right next to her, despite the number of empty seats on the plane.

“It has my pictures, all the things from while I was growing up...” She trailed off. “It's probably in evidence by now.” Tom had told her the police had swarmed her motel. “I'll never see anything in there again.” It was stupid that this realization hit her hardest. Obviously she wouldn't. Of course not. More importantly, if she ever saw Ressler, or Cooper, or any of her other friends from the Task Force again, it would be as they arrested her.

“I have pictures from that time,” Red said quietly. “You haven't lost those completely.”

The plane was taking off, and Liz found herself staring out the window, watching the ground fall away. “My whole life,” she whispered, finding it difficult to draw a breath.

“You still have your life,” Red said firmly. “You survived.”

She huffed out something between a laugh and a sob. “I'm alive. That's true, I guess. But,” she whispered, her chest still tight, “I don't have anything else. Or anyone.” That last word was almost inaudible, as the tears she had been trying to hold in finally burst out.

His arms went around her, and she clung to him as she cried. Her eyes closed, she tried to focus on the solid feel of him under her, and his hand stroking her hair. He didn't promise everything was going to be all right. But she thought she heard, over the sounds of her sobs, that he was telling her, “I'm here. Lizzie, I'm here.”

She didn't have the strength to acknowledge his words, although she was desperately glad for the truth of them. In fact, the tightness in her chest was getting worse, until each gasp for breath wasn't enough. She let go of Red and pulled back. Everything was starting to turn grey around the edges. Now Red's eyes were wide and he was trying to tell her something else, something urgent. But it was impossible to hear over the roaring in her ears. When the grey turned to black, her final thought was that getting away from this would be a relief.

~~~~~~

“Lizzie. Lizzie, please wake up. I need to know you're all right.” His voice. The number of times she'd heard him speak in a tone anywhere near as agitated had to be minimal.

It was enough to encourage her to open her eyes. Her diaphragm was sore, she realized, as she tried to move and mostly failed. Red's face was above hers, pale and drawn. “What happened?” she asked. Her own voice was weak.

When she made to sit up, he put his hands on her wrists gently. “Slowly. It seems that you had a panic attack, hyperventilated, and lost consciousness.”

She had fainted. Well, if anything could be a good reason to faint, the events of the past twenty-four hours probably qualified. She accepted his hand to help her sit up slowly from where she had been lying flat across one of the rows of seats. She still felt light-headed, and closed her eyes until it passed.

“Are you feeling better?”

She scoffed. “I can breathe now, if that's what you mean. I don't feel _better_.”

He nodded, and sat down next to her again. “When was the last time you ate anything, Lizzie?”

Liz blinked. He was talking about food. Like this situation wasn't one hundred percent removed from reality. “I don't know.” She honestly didn't. “I'm not hungry.”

“I'm sure you aren't, but you should eat,” he said. He paused, much more at a loss for words than she usually saw him. “I'm afraid the food on board is geared toward my tastes, but I can try to find whatever you need.”

For a fleeting moment, she almost smiled. “Red. I'm really not hungry. It has nothing to do with the selection of food.” The idea of eating so much as a cracker made her stomach twist. When the plane began to jerk in turbulence, that didn't help. She closed her eyes again. Red, for once, must have decided not to push.

She was tired enough that she drifted off to sleep again. But sleep brought no rest. Images of Connolly's disbelieving expression as the bullet had hit flashed through her mind as if they were projected on her eyelids. She gasped and tried her best to come awake, but now she was seeing the shadowy form of that man – her father – collapsing to the ground, and hearing a shocked woman call out the name Masha. The gun in her hands, the smell of gunpowder, and the tears pricking at her eyes were the same, no matter which images she was seeing.

Finally, she fought her way back to consciousness. The gunpowder scent faded slower than the rest of the dreams, and Liz realized she was trembling. She went hot and then cold all over, the hair at the back of her neck standing on end, and knew what that meant. Quickly, she pushed herself up out of the seat.

“Lizzie, what's wrong?” Red stood, too, and made as if to reach for her.

“Let me go, I need to –” She clapped a hand over her mouth, and he got the picture and moved aside. She made it to the plane's bathroom just in time to fall to her knees and throw up into the toilet. There wasn't much in her stomach, but she retched until she was exhausted. Her already sore abdominal muscles protested this treatment, and when she was finally done, she could barely rise to her feet, even holding on to the counter.

She happened to look up into the mirror as she turned to wash her hands. Any makeup she had been wearing was smudged, leaving her eyes, especially, dark and bruised in her pale and tear-streaked face. Her hair was mussed and stringy. All in all, she looked like death warmed over. Which was appropriate, she supposed.

When she finally left the bathroom, Red's worried gaze followed her. But again, uncharacteristically, he kept quiet. He did, however, hand her a water bottle when she sat down in the aisle seat across from him. She took a drink and sighed. “Where are we going, Red?” Anything not to talk about what had just happened. How much she was falling apart.

He frowned. “Our first stop will be in Amsterdam, although I don't expect we'll stay there long. I'm happy to continue with our itinerary, as long as you know we're also going to need to discuss what's going on with you.”

Liz stared into her lap, clenching her jaw. “What, do you need me to say it out loud? That I'm such a goddamn mess that I don't even recognize myself? That I can't close my eyes without being reminded that – that not only am I officially a murderer in the eyes of the US government as of today, but that I've been a murderer for almost my entire life?” She was shaking again, and her voice didn't sound as angry as she'd intended. Mostly, it sounded shrill and desperate.

Red's eyes darkened, and he leaned toward her across the aisle. “Lizzie. What you did as a very young child does not under any meaningful definition constitute murder. You know that.” When she didn't answer or even look at him, he changed tactics. “Tell me why you shot Tom Connolly.”

Now she looked up sharply. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Of course not. I have no intention of either judging you or justifying what you did,” he said. “Nor did I plan to speak to you about Connolly at all for some time. You've been through hell today.”

“Then why are you asking?” Her throat felt thick. She could feel that the smell of gunpowder was hovering right out of reach of her perception.

“Because I want to give you the chance to understand your own actions, rather than simply fearing or outright rejecting them,” Red said. “So tell me why. It wasn't only because he deserved it, as undoubtedly true as that is.”

“No,” she agreed. “It wasn't.” There were times when she wondered which of them had the degree in psychology. Pausing to drink some more water, she made herself consider it. As long as she didn't focus too hard on the actual event... “He threatened the whole team, and you. Each person. He said he would destroy all our lives. And the evidence against him that Cooper and I brought meant nothing. He just laughed.”

Red took that in, and nodded. “All right. With Andropov dead, that left you with no way that you could see to clear your name or protect the people you care about. Am I correct?”

Liz swallowed. It took no effort at all to remember the helplessness, desperation, and rage. “He was going to get away with it. No one would have been able to do anything about it.” She slumped forward, putting her face in her hands. “And then I realized that all this meant... I was either going to prison or going on the run, no matter what I did.”

Red was silent for a time. Then he nodded again. “Do you understand, Lizzie?”

She sniffed, and ran her hands over her face before sitting back up, still not looking at him. “Just because I have an explanation doesn't make it right.”

“No.” Red's tone was hard to decipher. “Nothing does. That's why it's natural for you to feel like you're falling apart. It would be worrying if you didn't.”

Surprisingly, that was almost comforting. It didn't escape her notice that he had personal experience with both of the kinds of huge upheavals that she was dealing with. It was her turn to nod. “So. What now?”

“There are several answers to that question,” said Red. He sighed, and it came over her that he was probably just as tired as her, if not more so. “In terms of taking action, I plan to continue to do everything in my power to destroy the Cabal. That includes counteracting any attack they launch on the Task Force.”

Liz blinked, and something inside her eased, just a tiny bit. “Even though the Task Force's goal has to be finding us, now?”

“I'm quite sure that is their goal. I'm also sure you'll agree that there are advantages to having the people charged with finding us be people who already know us,” Red pointed out. He smiled faintly, fleetingly. “It also has its disadvantages, of course. However, on balance, the fact that we're familiar with them, as well, still makes it my preferred option.”

He was right that imagining anyone else spearheading this effort was both more painful and much more terrifying than the alternative. “Okay. I'm with you on that plan.”

His answering smile was more genuine, although it still passed quickly. “I expected no less. What's next for you, personally, is a more difficult question. I will tell you that I won't let you go through it alone. And I will tell you that you can survive it, though the task may seem insurmountable now.”

That was enough to bring all her emotions back to the surface again. Her lip trembled, and she bit it until she drew blood. Her hands seized the armrests until they ached, and she shook her head. “How?” The word escaped her mouth along with all the air that was left in her lungs.

Red's hand covered hers gently. When she looked at him, he was stretched across the aisle in a way that had to be uncomfortable, but his expression held only empathy. “Look what you've already survived, even in just these past two years. You're stronger than you know. If this is the worst moment of your life, then it will pass, and then you will have already succeeded.”

Liz did her best to relax her hands, so she could turn over the one Red was touching and squeeze his. She wasn't sure she believed him. But she wanted to. And that was more hope than she'd had before getting on this plane. “You promise?”

Red's mouth worked for several seconds. “Lizzie, my worst moment was very similar. God knows, what I can promise you with certainty is that you will experience many more inconceivably awful moments. I'm sorry. I wanted so much to protect you from this.” Now it was him who wasn't meeting her eyes, as he hadn't when he had joined her on that bench hours before. “But yes, this will pass. And someday the pain will fade, and it will have taught you about who you are and what you can handle.”

Liz was crying again, which irritated her. With her free hand, she wiped the tears off her cheeks. If he was right, this was a lesson she would have preferred to skip. “You don't have to keep reaching over like that, Red. It makes my back hurt just to watch you.”

He released her hand, but she was right that he also looked at her again. “I can give you the space you need.”

“No, that's the last thing I need,” she said. “I just... I was afraid if I sat down where I was before, the next time I might not make it to the bathroom in time.” At his raised eyebrows, she went on, “So I guess, what I'm saying is, I'd be fine if you take the window seat next to me.” She stood and moved into the aisle behind the row where they both were. She would ask straight out if necessary.

Red seemed surprised. Nevertheless, he got up and went to take the seat she had offered.

Liz sat back down. “How long until we land?”

“A little over six more hours,” he told her.

She nodded. Another thought struck her. “Where's Dembe?”

“He'll catch up eventually. There are a few things I need him to take care of, first.”

Perhaps another time she'd want to know what kind of things Red meant. But for now, her exhaustion was making itself known once more. She shifted positions so she could lean her head on him again. “Good.” As her eyes slipped shut, she murmured, “You should sleep, too, Red. It's not like there's anything else to do.”

Whatever he said in response, she missed, although the affection in his tone and the feeling of security it brought followed her into slumber. She didn't doubt there would be more nightmares and trauma to struggle through. In the meantime, however, she found that the knowledge that she wasn't alone in any of this was genuinely enough for now.


End file.
